The Fear of Surgery and Coronavirus in Patients Who Will Undergo a Surgical Intervention

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the fear of surgery and Coronavirus in patients who will undergo a surgical intervention. Design: A descriptive cross-sectional study. Methods: This study was carried out with 103 patients who were hospitalized in the thoracic and cardiovascular surgery departments of a university hospital between July and December 2021 and underwent elective cardiac/thoracic surgery for various indications. The Patient Information Form, Surgical Fear Questionnaire, and Coronavirus (COVID-19) Fear Scale were used to collect data. One hundred three patients were reached within the scope of the study. Data were analyzed with the Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests and Spearman's correlation analysis in IBM SPSS (V.22.0) program. Findings: The mean age of the participants was 57.8 +/- 14.0 years (19-82), 68.0% (n = 70) were male, and 78.7% (n = 81) underwent thoracic surgery. The total mean score of the patients on the Surgical Fear Scale was 26.9 +/- 20.5 while the total mean score on the Coronavirus Fear Scale was 18.2 +/- 7.5. A weak positive correlation was identified between the patients' total score averages on the Surgical Fear Scale and the Coronavirus Fear Scale (COVID-19) (P < .001). Conclusions: Patients undergoing cardiothoracic surgery had a low fear of surgery and a close to moderate fear of Coronavirus. Patients' fears of surgery and Coronavirus should be determined before surgery, and psychological support should be provided to patients with high levels of fear. (c) 2022 American Society of PeriAnesthesia Nurses. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.